Musk was shocked! Young engineer develops Tesla’s trump card technology

May 12, 2025 Sunday – Tesla's fully autonomous driving system (hereinafter referred to as FSD) has recently made new moves.

Tesla CEO Musk in person confirmed on social platform X:

After the V12.4 version update, FSD will remove the requirement that "the driver needs to hold the steering wheel lightly with his hands".

This may mean that humans are one step closer to autonomous driving that requires no intervention at all.

Musk warms up the new version of FSD

On May 7, Musk forwarded a video of Tesla owners using the new version of FSD on X.

In the video, the whole process of the car owner using FSD from the stadium garage and driving home for 50 minutes after watching the game was recorded:

Driving off the road in underground garages, slowing down and waiting at intersections, highways at night, dealing with traffic jams... Judging from the above performance, the logic of FSD is indeed very similar to that of experienced human drivers.

The most impressive thing is an operation at the beginning of the video:

The Tesla in the video can calmly avoid roadblocks when driving on a narrow one-way street in urban areas, and then calmly return to its own lane to avoid oncoming cars.

On May 8, Musk warmed up on Twitter for three future minor versions - V12.4, V12.5 and V12.6.

On the V12.4 version, Tesla "almost completely retrained the model", with the main purpose of reducing acceleration or braking too quickly in order to improve comfort;

The V12.5 and V12.6 versions are looking for solutions for special road conditions such as reversing on dead ends.

Indian (Special Topic) Engineers born in the 1990s refuse to leave Tesla

The V12 major version of FSD is completely on the fast track in terms of iteration speed and functional performance.

Most of this is due to the integration of neural network systems.

However, the evolution of FSD was almost aborted because of a personnel transfer by Musk.

This dramatic story is recorded in detail in "Musk's Biography" published in 2023.

At the end of 2022, Twitter, which had just experienced Musk’s “bloodbath layoffs”, was in urgent need of manpower; as a member of Tesla’s autonomous driving team, Tesla engineer Dhavar Shroff was deeply trusted by Musk.

Therefore, his name was included in the list of people going to Twitter to put out the fire.

However, unlike other engineers who obeyed the arrangement, Shroff was not willing to leave Tesla:

"I think it's important to continue to do the job I'm doing."

Daval Shroff is an engineer from Mumbai, India.

In 2013, Shroff, who graduated from the University of Mumbai with a bachelor's degree, went to Carnegie Mellon University for further studies, focusing on study and research in robotics science.

In 2014, after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, Shroff joined Tesla and worked on autonomous driving.

At that time, Shroff was optimizing a neural network path planning project:

Compared with the 100,000 lines of code manually written and updated by Tesla engineers, it will be more efficient to let the car learn the correct way to drive on its own, like humans.

"It's like ChatGPT, but for cars."

Musk was shocked after the test drive: "It opened my eyes"

In order to stay at Tesla, Shroff showed Musk some of the results of his work at that time——

Guided by neural networks, the car can maneuver around trash cans, downed traffic cones and scattered debris, and even cross lane lines, breaking some rules when necessary.

"We no longer determine the correct route of the vehicle based only on rules, but through neural networks. "

In April 2023, Shroff and the autonomous driving team arranged for a test vehicle. Musk sat in the driver's seat, while Shroff and two other members of the team sat in the back.

As they drove out of the parking lot of the Tesla office building, Musk selected a destination on the map, clicked the "Full Self-Driving" button, and then took his hands off the steering wheel.

When the test vehicle turned onto the main road, the first terrible challenge appeared: a cyclist came towards them.

"We all held our breath because the behavior of cyclists is very unpredictable," Shroff said.

But Musk didn't care and didn't grab the steering wheel, so the car avoided the situation on its own.

For up to 25 minutes, the car kept driving on expressways and streets, completing some complicated turns and avoiding various cyclists, pedestrians and pets. Musk never touched the steering wheel.

After the test drive, Musk said in shock: "Even the neural network in my head can't handle this situation, but it did a very good job."

"Great job, guys! Eye-opening for me."

In the end, Musk was successfully moved and agreed to let Shroff stay in the autonomous driving team.

The rapid updates and excellent performance of FSD today also prove that this decision is correct.

Conclusion

The start of this year is not going very smoothly for Tesla.

In the first quarter, Tesla’s revenue reached US$21.3 billion, approximately 154.3 billion yuan (special topic), a year-on-year decrease of 13%;

Net profit was US$1.5 billion; a year-on-year decrease of 55%.

For Tesla, they still firmly believe that FSD equipped with AI is the key to leading them out of the decline.

Judging from Tesla’s financial report, this can also be confirmed——

In the first quarter, Tesla’s R&D expenses were US$1.151 billion, and the proportion of artificial intelligence-related projects increased.

As Musk said during the earnings call:

"Even if aliens abduct me tomorrow, Tesla will have to solve the autonomous driving problem."